Within a month and a half, Democrat Parker was introducing Republican Emmett before his state of the county speech.

"Despite our different political affiliations, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and I tend to agree more than we disagree. In fact, the two of us have the kind of working relationship that I hope to forge with the rest of county government," Parker told the downtown audience of movers and shakers at Hilton Americas.

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City and county officials have not met for months to discuss a joint booking facility, long touted as a way to save taxpayers money. It would get the city out of the jail business and filter frequent fliers out of the incarceration pipeline by putting social service representatives at the entrance and exit doors to the county jail.

At a meeting last month at which Commissioners Court approved a plan to transform the county crime lab into a regional one, county officials spoke of their frustration that the city still has not agreed on terms for participation, despite the Houston Police Department's well-publicized and costly troubles with its own crime lab.

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And the manager of the county's Reliant complex expects to get a half-million-dollar city drainage bill soon, which has antagonized officials who think the county should be exempted from the fee.

"Who's stuck in the middle is the taxpayer, who could benefit tremendously from joint activities, and crime victims, who could benefit from evidence moving expeditiously through the crime lab," said county Treasurer Orlando Sanchez, who served on City Council from 1996 to 2001.

The stakes are high, said Bob Borochoff, CEO of Cafe Adobe. As chairman of the Greater Houston Partnership's public safety committee, he brought city and county officials together in the spring to negotiate on the crime lab.

"This is truly a human rights issue and a safety issue in our city that possibly exceeds all the others because it comes down to this: Are we putting the right people in jail?" Borochoff said. "This is a project that involves tens of millions of dollars, lots and lots of jobs and some importance politically. But the overriding concern is one of human rights."

"This is truly a human rights issue and a safety issue in our city that possibly exceeds all the others because it comes down to this: Are we putting the right people in jail?" Borochoff said. "This is a project that involves tens of millions of dollars, lots and lots of jobs and some importance politically. But the overriding concern is one of human rights."

Financing is focal point

The more practical concern is how to pay for it.

A booking center is on the city's funded building projects list but not on the county's. Harris County voters rejected a $195 million bond measure for a jail and booking center in 2007, on the same ballot that they signed off on five other major public projects costing tens of millions of dollars each. The city would have contributed $32 million to that plan. The offer still stands, said Andy Icken, the city's chief development officer.

"If the county came to me tomorrow and said, 'We're ready to go for a bond issue and work on the processing center,' we're prepared to work with them," Icken said.

On the crime lab, the tables are turned. County voters approved $80 million for a crime lab on the same ballot in which they rejected the jail and booking center. In this case, it is the city that does not have the money.

The recession also forced both governments into months of budget crisis management and has made long-term planning difficult.

"It's really not that there's disagreement. It's that these things have not made it to the front burner in light of other issues that are going on," Emmett said.

The city cut $100 million in spending this year. The county cut $138 million. Controversies over red-light cameras and a new drainage fee continue to roil City Hall. County leaders have limited building commitments because of the budget.

The financial squeeze also plays out against the backdrop of a traditional divide between city and county.

The county and city, by state law, have differing missions, offer disparate services and have varying authority to fund and achieve those. The governance is equally different, with the city ruled by a strong mayor and 14-member council, and the county run by a five-member commissioners court in which four members have considerable control over their individual precincts.

Who will run it?

The crime lab talks also are about who will be in charge, Borochoff observed. He speaks for neither the city nor county, but said he believes the city does not want to just write a check and have no power to hold the lab accountable for the spending.

Part of the negotiations over a regional crime lab entail whether Commissioners Court controls it as it does the current Institute of Forensic Sciences, or an independent board governs the operation.

What will keep the deals alive, leaders agree, is that both the city and county governments need them.

As Parker said in her Emmett introduction last year: "This region must rise together, must work together, must coordinate our activities together, particularly in a time of declining tax revenues."